Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Bob's Longform Burger

There's another hand-drawn feature in our future ... yet another spin-off from a popular television series:

20th Century Fox said today that it is making a feature film based on the Fox animated series Bob’s Burgers and has set a July 17, 2020 release date. ...

“A Bob’s Burgers film fits perfectly with our initiative to redouble our family and animation efforts,” said Twentieth Century Fox Film chairman and CEO Stacey Snider. “We’re grateful to [Fox Television Group chairmen Gary Newman and Dana Walden] for trusting us with this beloved property and we’re so excited to be working with Loren and his team.” ...

As Disney mines its vaults, so 20th Century Fox mines the animation properties it has on hand. Execs over there no doubt took a look at the show's climbing ratings and Emmy visibility, and decided that a BB feature was a viable way to make money and keep the Bob's Burgers' brand robust and visible.

The question is, how big will the budget be? The Simpsons Movie came in at $75 million; I'm guessing that the money spent on this project will be less than that, tens of millions less. (Walt Disney Animation Studios delivered its Winnie the Pooh feature for $30 million. That would seem to be a realistic target for Bob's Burgers.)

And the other question: How much of the movie will be made at the Bento box studios in Burbank, North Hollywood, and Atlanta? Certainly lots of the pre-production, but maybe some of the animation as well, though it wouldn't surprise anybody if much of the animation and layouts were done overseas like the series. (The Simpsons Movie had storyboards, script, character designs, layouts and some key animation created in Southern California.)